B O D Y P O L I T I C
Religion & Freedom, Hand in Hand for
Dr. Melissa Rogers
Recipient of the 2010 Virginia First Freedom Award
by Annie Tobey
always find that fascinating.” She has been on the faculty of the Divinity School
since 2003, and also serves as nonresident senior fellow in the Governance
Program of the Brookings Institution. She was appointed by President Obama in
2009 to the newly formed Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood
Partnerships, a group of 25 nationally recognized religious liberty experts and
religious leaders.
One of Melissa’s proudest achievements came this January, when the Center
for Religion and Public Affairs released a statement entitled Religious Expression
in American Life: A Joint Statement of Current Law. She was pleased that the
statement came from “a very diverse group, including people who used to work
for the ACLU, a lawyer who works for Pat Robertson, and the American Center
for Law and Justice, and we were able to agree on what the law says in certain
Melissa Rogers, left, and Dr. Isabelle Kinnard Richman,
areas of church state relations. Whenever you can get that kind of diversity in
Vice President for Education, First Freedom Center
agreement, including Sikhs and Muslims and Christian, that’s very gratifying.”
(Find the complete statement and committee members at http://divinity.wfu.edu/
elissa Rogers’s interest in the first amendment extends back to the cradle.
M
pdf/DivinityLawStatement.pdf.)
“I grew up in a Baptist family,” she explains, “and Baptists take great
On January 14, 2010, at the Richmond Marriott, Melissa received her
pride in teaching about religious liberty, not just as a legal principle but
award from The Richmond-based First Freedom Center, which offers educational
as a theological principle.” As she explained in her acceptance speech
programs that promote understanding and respect for religious freedom. In
for the 2010 Virginia First Freedom Award on January 14, “Along with learning that
observance of National Religious Freedom Day, January 16, the First Freedom
God’s presence is strongest in the back three pews of the church, and that fellowship
Center recognizes champions of religious freedom with Virginia, national, and
always has something to do with food, I learned that religious liberty is and must be
international awards.
the right of all people.”
The Center presented the 2010 National First Freedom Award to Felice D.
Though this may surprise some who know only of the conservative nature of some
Gaer, Director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human
contemporary Baptists, the Christian denomination’s appreciation for disestablishment
Rights of the American Jewish Committee, and the International First Freedom
and freedom of conscience extends back to Roger Williams and early Rhode Island
Award to Abdurrahman Wahid, first popularly elected president of Indonesia,
in the 1600s. In Chesterfield County, John Weatherford was jailed for preaching
1999-2000 (award presented posthumously, after his death on December 30,
without a license from the state church of Virginia—and continued preaching to the
2009).
“congregation” who gathered outside of his prison cell.
In addition to her message of the importance of separation of church and
The Great Awakening in the 1700s, led by Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers,
state, Melissa said, “For Baptists generally and for me personally, religious liberty
and others, aided James Madison and Thomas Jefferson in their pursuit of
and church state separation certainly never meant that religion has no place in
disestablishment, as it focused on salvation only through Jesus. John Leland, Baptist
public life…. Religion influences both private decisions and public decisions.”
and Virginian, supported Madison in his fight for religious liberty. “When Baptists
She explained that religious freedom operates in two directions. “Preventing
fought for religious liberty,” says Melissa “they didn’t just fight for their own religious
government from meddling in faith is necessary to protect minority faith and
liberty, but for that of all people.”
people of no faith, but it’s also necessary to protect the faith that would otherwise
Melissa continues to carry the banner. “When government trespasses into sacred
be favored and funded by the govt.” She quoted Virginian John Leland, who said
space, I learned as a Baptist that it is our duty to push it back out of that space.
that “the fondest of magistrates to foster Christianity have done it more harm than
And it’s our duty whether the person who is aggrieved by state action is Baptist or
all the persecutions ever did.”
Buddhist, Mormon or Muslim, Anglican or atheist, and this is because all people
In addition to looking to the past, Melissa Rogers inspired the audience to
must have the inalienable and equal right to religious freedom, whether we are part
continue their vigilance for religious liberty. “We have to join hands in the fight
of the overwhelming majority, or whether we are the lone dissenters.”
for religious liberty today and in the future. Fighting to protect one’s own faith is
Religious liberty is an important focus of Melissa Rogers’s professional life, as
just special interest lobbying. But fighting to defend and extend the inalienable
director of the Center for Religion and Public Affairs at the School of Divinity at
right to religious liberty that is a transcendent task for all of us.” She closed her
Wake Forest University. “More broadly,” she explains, she is engaged with “religion’s
acceptance with these words to the audience: “May we have the strength, the
role in society and public life, and how religion influences ideas and institutions. I
discernment, and the commitment to continue to fight this good fight together.” V
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• FEBRUARY 2010